Exordium
by July Storms
Summary: Medieval Fantasy AU. A messenger just arrived from the coast. Titans have landed on Kirschstein soil; with the queen in poor health, Prince Jean, collaborating (as well as can be expected) with visiting royalty, must find a way to deal with this new threat. Not as serious as it sounds.


**Exordium**

**Prompt**: Medieval fantasy AU where Jean is a cynical and seemingly cowardly prince and Sasha is his childhood friend/a badass knight. Anon suggested this via an ask to Jeansasha on Tumblr.

**Notes**: I didn't know I actually needed this in my life. Don't ask me what I'm doing—I don't know. To be continued…?

* * *

"We're all going to die."

Sasha looked up from the ornate rug covering the stone floor of Prince Jean's bedroom. She wasn't supposed to be in there, not inside anyway, not without good reason, but she supposed imminent death was reason enough to close the door behind her. "What?" she asked, crossing her arms over her chest. "We're not gonna die."

"The strategy meeting is in an hour. I think that is excellent proof that we're all about to die."

She reached into the glass bowl on the table by the door and pulled out a nut, popping it into her mouth before chewing carefully. Then she threw a whole handful into her mouth. "It'll be fine," she mumbled around the half-chewed nuts.

"What?" he asked, and then turned to stare at her, his eyebrows lowering in annoyance. "This isn't—this is _hardly_ the time to be stuffing your face!"

"Every time is the perfect time for eating," she countered.

"Peasant," he fired off.

"Hardly as poor as all that."

"You're a noble in title only," he grumbled. "Your family has no money at all."

"Yet here I am," she said, spreading her arms out, "protecting your frightened ass."

"Don't sound so uncultured," he complained, pulling at his hair. But he didn't continue the banter; he immediately began rambling about how they were all destined to die horribly. "The scout that made it back to the castle was in bad shape, you know? The others are all dead: that's what he said. I've heard Eren say that the Titans are especially barbaric. They kill women, you know. Children, too—newborns and kids too young to even squire—and have fun with it. I wonder if we could get away on horseback if we left right now…"

"We can't run away, Jean!" Sasha found herself practically yelling, nut crumbs flying out of her mouth. She kicked them to scatter them on the carpet so that they would be less noticeable. "Prince Eren is visiting, and your mother is—look, we can't just _leave_. We have to fight!"

"And what?" he asked. "Lose all our soldiers and then die horribly? Wow, it sure is great that Dame Sasha thought of this brilliant strategy! You know, you should absolutely be with me for the strategy meeting. I'm sure Armin will be impressed with what you've come up with."

"Shut up, Jean."

"You can't talk to your prince that way."

"I just did."

"Stop eating my food!"

"Naw. I liked you better when you were whining about how we were all gonna die."

"I wasn't whining!"

"Yes you were!" she said, wiping a hand across the back of her mouth.

"I was complaining. Earnestly."

"That is such bull and you know it."

"Your manners are—they're abhorrent."

"And that word is too big for your tiny head. I'm surprised you could even think of it."

"I'm surprised _you_ know what it is, yourself, all things considered!"

Sasha huffed, hands clenched tight. "You were so much nicer as a child!"

"And you were exactly the same," he said, smirking before he added, "Potato Girl," firmly to the end of his sentence.

"Stop bringing that up!" she nearly shouted.

"You threw potatoes at me! And you were eating one—eating it _raw_!"

"That was ten years ago!"

"So? It's still relevant! You haven't changed at all! Still stuffing your face and yelling and—"

Sasha picked up the bowl of nuts and tipped the remains of it into her mouth, gaze locked with his the entire time.

"Ugh, gross," was all he said, though, to her disappointment.

She chewed the nuts halfway and then said, "Why don't you go to your big meeting so that Armin can tell you exactly how you'll die and Prince Eren can call you a coward more times than you can count."

His nose crinkled in distaste. "I heard three words of that around the food in your mouth," he said. "Would you stop being disgusting for five minutes?"

"I'm not disgusting!"

"I didn't say you were!"

"Yuh-huh! You just did!"

"I said you were _being_ disgusting!"

"Same difference!"

"That phrase doesn't even make any sense!"

"And neither do you!"

They both just stared at one another for a long minute before Jean picked up his fancy gloves and pulled them on with such deliberate slowness that Sasha wanted to pull her own hair out. "I have a very important meeting to attend, Potato Girl."

"I'm not a little girl anymore!"

"Fine. Potato _Knight_. You should clean up your mess."

She groaned in annoyance. "That's what the servants are for."

"What's the difference?" he asked.

"You are a terrible friend and I don't like you right now."

"Whatever. You'll start drooling and rolling around on the floor like a hound the moment you notice I have a lamb shank or something."

"I'll forgive you right now if you promise me that."

"Promise what?"

"A lamb shank."

"I can't promise you anything, Potato Knight," he said. "I have a meeting to go to so that I can learn exactly how Armin plans to get us all killed."

With that, and a half-successful twirl of his cloak, he was out of the door and halfway down the corridor.

"He's such an idiot," she muttered, and scooped up some of the crumbs she'd gotten all over the floor just to slide them under his pillow. With any luck, he would hopefully find them later that night—provided they weren't all dead by then, of course.


End file.
